STA

Author: John Rydning, Research Director, Hard Disk Drives
IDC

Storage device options continue to broaden for disk storage system OEMs and end users. For enterprise applications, hard-disk drives (HDDs) are now available in several form factors, configured with parallel SCSI, Fibre Channel, Serial ATA (SATA) or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interfaces. An increasing number of solid state drives (SSDs) are now also shipping for enterprise applications. DRAM-based SSDs have for many years satisfied the needs of very high performance, latency-sensitive environments, but at a high cost. Now, with the price decline in NAND flash and advances in technology, NAND-based SSDs have a growing opportunity in the datacenter. Similar to HDDs, flash-based SSDs are offered with several interface options.

Today's diversity of storage device options for the datacenter contrasts sharply with the limited selection available just five years ago. Consider the changes that have taken place just with hard disk drives. In 2003, essentially two HDD form factors serviced the large percentage of enterprise datacenter storage demands: 3.5 inch 10,000 rpm and 3.5 inch 15,000 rpm HDDs. Today, in addition to these 3.5 inch enterprise class products, the HDD industry also ships 2.5 inch 10,000 and 15,000 rpm enterprise-class small-form-factor (SFF) drives. Collectively, IDC classifies these drives as performance-optimized HDDs. By 2009, 2.5 inch performance-optimized HDDs will out-ship 3.5 inch products.

Author: Alvin Ooi, Marketing Manager,
Advanced Industrial Computer

The fast-growing demands of media storage in the broadcasting industry pose a significant challenge to the industry's IT professionals. The entire workflow process, from intake and production to play-to-air, requires massive storage capacities which are easily and quickly accessible. Streamlining the process of retrieving and restoring media, while maintaining IT overhead, is a key issue for industry broadcast media professionals. Their challenge is to find a large capacity, scalable solution that is fast, reliable and cost-effective.

Figure 1: The KCET-TV computer Room

KCET-TV serves Southern and Central California. It is watched by four million viewers a month in 11 counties, the largest broadcast reach of any public television station in the United States. Throughout its more than 40-year history, KCET-TV has won awards for its public affairs programming, drama and documentary productions, family and children's programs, community services and local and regional news.

Author: Steve Denegri, Storage Consultant, Financial Analyst

A study on data center electricity usage published a year ago by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) continues to receive attention in the storage industry. The study illustrates that storage is not keeping pace with servers and networking equipment as it relates to the amount of energy each of these hardware categories uses in the data center. In fact, the EPA study shows that storage is consuming an increasing portion of the data center's power budget as networking equipment and servers are maintaining a steady appetite for electricity, not a good trend in these times of skyrocketing utility costs. No wonder the EPA study recommends that the storage industry dramatically improve upon its power management semantics for disk and tape systems. And the industry pundits are taking this data and running with it, with talk of underutilized storage resources and customers not getting the most of the equipment they've purchased, as if that's a new theme. Regardless, many vendors in the storage industry are salivating at the thought of bringing new energy-efficient products to market, believing that this problem has all the ingredients of a paradigm shift that could rearrange the competitive playing field.

However, these vendors would be better off recognizing that this heightened attention to energy efficiency is less indicative of a new growth opportunity and, more likely, portends an uncertain future for the industry, as a whole. Countless industries have reached an energy ceiling over the past half century, only to realize, soon after, that revenue potential had peaked. What follows is a survival contest that only Darwin would love: more combinations at the top of the food chain and significant consolidation or closed doors among the multitude of suppliers. As revenue potential falls, those who are fortunate enough to survive must remain in cost-cutting mode in order to stay competitive.

Author: Mike Karp, Senior Analyst,
Enterprise Management Associates

"Storage density" is the term that describes how much storage capacity can be packed into a specified amount of space. The actual measurement varies a bit depending on your focus. Disk drive vendors measure bits per square inch, while tape vendors think in terms of bits per linear inch. Data center managers measure things at a more macro level: for them storage density is a measure of terabytes (and increasingly, petabytes) per square foot of floor space.

At least that's the way things were measured up until recently.

Author: Ashish Nadkarni, Principal Consultant
GlassHouse Technologies

Flash drives, also known as solid state drives, have a promising future in the enterprise space. They promise to overcome literally all limitations of traditional hard drives - power consumption, heat dissipation, mean time between failures, speed and IO/s, etc. The list is long. There is no doubt that eventually they will replace all rotational hard drives in the enterprise space, as well as the consumer market. If you have bought into the promise of solid state drives and are planning to invest in it right away, hold your plans for now. The technology should be continually researched to figure out how to best help your environment, stopping short of actually buying anything - yet. The technology is seemingly mature but still has to establish itself in the enterprise space. Then, and only then, will it become viable as a replacement technology for spindle-based drives.